About Me

I have been teaching Special Education for nine years in resource and self-contained settings. I currently teach a self-contained cross-categorical class consisting of 1st and 2nd grade. I have been inspired by all the wonderful teacher blogs I've come across to share some of what I am doing in my classroom in hopes you will find it useful in yours.

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Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Tom Turkey

One of my favorite projects I did last year with my students involved Tom Turkey.

Tom is very afraid as Thanksgiving is getting near. He needs to find a way to hide from the farmer so he doesn't become Thanksgiving dinner. He decides that the best way to hide is to wear a disguise. It is up to your students (with help from family) to develop a disguise for Tom. As an extension, they can also write a simple persuasive argument as to why he should not be eaten. For example, if Tom is disguised as Santa, his argument could be "If I am eaten, then there will be no one to deliver presents to all the children on Christmas."

I had my students do this at home with their family and I gave them about a week to complete the project. Before assigning the project I read to them the book Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano.

In this book, Turkey disguises himself as different animals so as not to be eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. When he realizes that he can't hide as another animal, he disguises himself as a pizza delivery boy and brings the family a pizza for Thanksgiving dinner.

I then send home the following (click on pictures to download):

This is in a Word file so you can edit it as needed.

And here are some examples from last year:

dog

True Jackson

Santa Claus

Elvis

a star

a DJ

Indian Chief

an IU volleyball player

a carnie

So hopefully you can download the documents and have your students disguise Tom Turkey so he doesn't become Thanksgiving dinner. *gobble, gobble*